Monday, January 21, 2019

After school let out on that sun-drenched afternoon in
November, 1945, hundreds of excited teens tromped toward the football stadium.The Campbell (California) High School
Buccaneers would soon be in action and school spirit was high.

Thomas H. McMonigle, 30, an ex-con from Illinois, trolled
along in his car, watching. After a few
minutes, he spotted his target—cute fourteen-year-old Thora Chamberlain. Walking
on the sidewalk with several girlfriends, she wore her school colors: a red
skirt and blue sweater, along with two pairs of bobby socks, a red and blue one
on each foot.In addition to her
schoolbooks, Thora carried a cowbell.

McMonigle pulled up to the curb and motioned Thora
over.Rolling down the passenger window,
he asked the girl if she’d like to baby-sit for him and his wife.The fact that he was wearing military clothing
(Navy grays with several medals, including a purple heart) may have made her
less cautious than she normally would be.

Thora told him she was headed to the football game,
and didn’t want to miss it.He insisted
that he’d pay her double, and it would only be for thirty minutes.She’d be back in time for the game, he
said.Several classmates said they saw
her get in the car and watched it drive away. Before leaving, Thora called to a friend to
“save me a seat.”

The teen was never seen again by anyone except her
killer.

The FBI became involved in the search, and quickly honed
in on the career criminal.But by that
time, McMonigle had fled.He hitchhiked
to his father’s home in Illinois, trailed by agents, staying a step ahead as he
crisscrossed back and forth across the country.The Feds finally caught up with him in San Francisco.

Thora’s classmates identified McMonigle as the man who
had driven away with Thora, and he soon confessed.He said he had shot her with a .32-caliber
revolver, then driven her to “Devil’s Slide” in San Mateo County where he
dropped her off a 300-foot cliff into the ocean.

The FBI and other agencies launched a massive search
of the area, but never found Thora’s body.However, they did locate her socks in a rock crevice
about two-thirds of the way down the cliff.The poignancy of that find came home to investigators when Thora’s
parents identified the socks.Their inconsolable
grief touched the agents.

While digging up a construction site where McMonigle had
sporadically worked, agents discovered Thora’s shoes, schoolbooks and papers,
zipper binder, and cowbell.They also
located a .32-caliber pistol in the suspect’s luggage.The Navy uniform McMonigle had worn during
the abduction was also found, and proved to have been stolen from a former
serviceman.

McMonigle made numerous confessions, all
different.For instance, he asserted
that after Thora got in his car, he drove at breakneck speed, causing her to become
frightened.She jumped out, injuring
herself.McMonigle stated he picked her
up, intending to take her to the hospital, but she died on the way.He said he didn’t know what to do so he
stopped and buried her.

Tall tales aside, and even though Thora’s body was never found, a jury convicted McMonigle and
sentenced him to die in the gas chamber.

During his interviews with the FBI, McMonigle
confessed to murdering Dorothy Rose Jones and burying her at Devil’s
Slide.Although he led agents to her
grave, he was never tried for that crime.

Enter Dr. Robert Cornish, 42, a Berkley scientist and
revivification “expert.”The scientist
informed reporters that McMonigle had contacted him, offering his body for “reanimation”
after he was executed.

Cornish had made headlines, although in a negative
way.After trying unsuccessfully to resurrect
humans, the UCLA scientist had gone to the dogs, literally five fox terriers.Cornish named these animals Lazarus I, II,
III, IV, and V.Unlike the Biblical
character, none fared well, even the last two, whom he succeeded in resuscitating
after killing them.When the public
heard about the experiments on the innocent little terriers, they were
horrified.Cornish was summarily kicked out
of his UCLA lab and sent packing.

Still, he continued his experiments.He inferred that he had perfected his method,
which was to inject the dead with a concoction of adrenalin, blood, and liver
extract, then place the corpse on a teeterboard, rocking it back and forth to
thoroughly mix the potion.That, Cornish
claimed, was the key to reanimation.

The mad scientist was sure he could bring the killer
back to life.

McMonigle petitioned California authorities to allow
the procedure, but officials denied his request due to concerns that the
murderer would have to be freed if he succeeded in coming back to life.

During all this mess, the lost girl who just wanted to
cheer on her high school team was rarely mentioned.

On the morning of February 20, 1948, McMonigle ate two
hearty meals, smoked several cigars, joked with his guards, then was escorted
to the gas chamber. At about 10:13 A.M.,
a prison doctor pronounced the unrepentant child-killer dead.

Tuesday, January 1, 2019

December
16, 1916 rode into the Nevada mountains on a snowstorm.It was not a pleasant time to be transporting
mail in a buckboard wagon pulled by two horses.Fred M. Searcy, the driver, shivered through the late evening on his
route from Three Creek, Idaho to a remote mining town called Jarbidge, in Elko
County near the state line.

Searcy’s
route wound down Crippen Grade, a steep, dangerous pass.With icy winds sweeping across the ridges,
most residents stayed inside their homes.A few hardy (or desperate) souls braved the elements to down a few at
watering holes such as “The Northern” saloon.

Gold had
been discovered there in 1909.Soon the
boomtown bustled with restaurants, hotels, saloons, stables and other
businesses catering to miners.While the
weather was balmy in the summer, deep winter snows and nasty storms drove many
miners away for the winter.(Before
closing in 1932, the mines extracted somewhere between 10 million and 50
million dollars-worth of gold.)

Postmaster
Scott Fleming waited nervously.He knew
the Three Creek mail wagon carried $3,000 in cash, as well as a registered bag filled
with first-class mail.Before dawn the
next morning, townspeople began searching for the missing driver.Nell Burbarger described the scene: “Defying
the storm that was now wailing through the dark streets of the mountain mining
camp, a volunteer searching party, lighted by kerosene lanterns, began combing
the canyon…”

A few
hours later, they found a gruesome scene.Tucked back in dense woods a quarter of a mile from town, the wagon sat
motionless.Sitting against it was the corpse
of Searcy, a bullet in the back of his head.According to Burbarger, “the sack containing the first-class mail—including
$3,200 in cash consigned to Crumley & Walker’s Success Bar and Café, and
other smaller amounts to a total of nearly $4,000—was nowhere to be seen.”

Suspicion immediately
settled on a ne’er-do-well named Ben Kuhl.He’d recently been fined $400 for “jumping a claim,” and was out on
bond.Before coming to Jarbidge, he’d been
jailed in California for petty theft and served a year in the Oregon State
Prison for horse theft.His torn coat
was found at the scene of the murder, and he had access to a .44-caliber
pistol, the type used to kill Searcy.Kuhl was arrested and placed in the Jarbidge jail to await trial.

Part of
the evidence against him consisted of bloody letters found at the scene.One had a near-perfect palm print on it.Authorities hired two fingerprint experts
from California to examine the letter, and both testified that the print
belonged to Kuhl.(This was the first
time palm print evidence was allowed in an American court.)

Kuhl was convicted
of murder and sentenced to death.On
appeal, the courts commuted his sentence to life in prison.After spending 27 years in prison, he was
released in 1945. Kuhl later died of tuberculosis in San Francisco.One accomplice, Ed Beck, was convicted of
providing the murder weapon and sentenced to life in prison, but was paroled
six years later.A third accomplice turned
state’s evidence and walked free.

Western
lore, never much concerned with truth, soon transformed the mail heist into a “stage
coach” robbery.In fact, it allegedly became
“the last stagecoach robbery in the wild west.”Guy Rocha, Nevada State Archivist, dismisses that claim.He writes that “the embellished robbery story
converted a buckboard wagon into a stagecoach the likes of the Overland Stage.”

And what’s
more western than a good lost treasure story?Legend has it that the $3,000 was not in paper money but gold coins, and
that it’s still buried somewhere near Jarbidge.Treasure hunters continue to roam the mountain
with metal detectors in hopes of finding that box of dreams.

NOTE: Pictured
is a saloon token from Jarbidge.For
many years I collected tokens, (also called scrip) which
were used almost from the founding of America to the present day.Caroline Augustine writes: “Saloon owners returned change for their patrons’ payments
of real money for goods and services with tokens, which were ‘good for’ drinks
only at that saloon. Saloon patrons
returned to use the tokens in lieu of real money.”Many times, they never returned, thereby
earning the saloon owner an even nicer profit.By the way, if you don’t find that box of gold, a second-best option
might be a jar filled with saloon tokens.Their value may not equal gold, but if you’re lucky, you might be able
to pay off your house, and maybe even your car.